


Default Features

by blackredpanda



Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Introspection, Minor OC - Freeform, copy chip headcanons, morally dubious Axl, pre-Mega Man X8, quest for origins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 13:51:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17225228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackredpanda/pseuds/blackredpanda
Summary: Axl falls into his old habits while investigating his relationship to the new generation Reploids.





	Default Features

Axl was certain Maverick Hunters weren't supposed to do this. Maverick Hunters weren't supposed to wall-jump up civilian apartments in the dead of night while off-duty. They weren't supposed to cut open windows and break into those apartments. And they definitely weren't supposed to crouch in cupboards and lie in wait for the inhabitants.

Most of the Reploids living in these apartments were from the first production run of the so-called new generation Reploids, made to work on the Jakob Project. These Reploids were built with copy chips which allowed them to use the DNA data of other Reploids to adapt to any task they faced – an ability Axl was very familiar with. He'd even overheard them talking about him once or twice when he'd been on patrol. The consensus was that he was a prototype model, since he was older than they were and his copy ability seemed to be different from theirs. They didn't know that for sure though.

Neither did he.

If he could look at the blueprints and documents the new-gen production facilities had, he just might find some clues about who designed the copy chips – and who created any prototypes. But even as a Maverick Hunter, he couldn't do that without a warrant.

Of course, he hadn't always been a Maverick Hunter.

He'd done his homework. The staff rolls of the production facilities had been easy enough to access. From there, he'd shortlisted people who were the most likely to have access to the files he wanted, and kept his eye on them for a couple of weeks to see who would be the easiest to copy and impersonate. His target tonight was Alonzo, serial number JP-NG-76, a quality control inspector who spent most of his spare time painting what one could only assume was abstract art. Not that Axl gave a single scrap about that. The important part was that Alonzo usually went straight home after his shift, where he could be ambushed with minimal fuss. Then Axl could simply transform into him, duck back into the factories and say that he'd... forgotten something.

The door opened and a lean Reploid with orange-brown armour walked in. Alonzo was home no more than an hour after he was supposed to leave work, as predicted. Even then, he rubbed his eyes and sighed as he looked at the wall-mounted shelves to his left, which held his painting supplies, and then at the recharge bed on the other end of the room. The bed won. He shuffled towards it and past the cupboard where Axl was hiding.

Axl closed in swiftly behind him, clamped a hand over his mouth, and fired a stun bolt into his lower back. He made a strangled yelp and clawed at Axl's hand for a few short moments before his body gave out.

"I'm sorry I can't just ask nicely for this," Axl said. But he couldn't help smiling a little. It was gratifying to see that he hadn’t lost his touch.

He hefted Alonzo into the recharge bed and double- and triple-checked that he had switched to his Copy Shot before firing his handgun into Alonzo's flank, sending a spasm through his limp body. That was an ability the production new-gens didn't have; they were built with a large library of DNA data, but they couldn't add to it on their own. Unfortunately for Alonzo, copying DNA data was never a pleasant process.

_{DNA data successfully acquired.}_

Axl was curious to see if the new-gens were, in fact, complete versions of his build. Activating his A-Trans, he stretched his limbs and wriggled his fingers and foot joints. Those couldn’t go wrong. The obvious thing to do next was to test Alonzo’s copy chip. He rifled through its data until he noticed an interesting morph: a Reploid built for aerial combat called "Storm Eagle". For one fleeting moment, he recalled the sight of Crowrang’s winged shadow over him, and the rush of wind on his face as he leapt from rooftop to rooftop after his flying friend. Could he, while transformed into Alonzo, transform into one of _his_ stored morphs?

A stabbing pain in his chest answered him, bringing him to his knees. He ground his teeth and dug his fingers into the floor, choking on the scream that was tearing its way through his throat and would give him away –

_{Error: Copied subsystem may compromise restoration of default state. A-Trans aborted.}_

Maybe that hadn't been one of his better ideas. At least the pain had stopped when he reverted. He stood back up, transformed again, and ran a basic systems check to see if this morph had any useful features other than its blasted copy chip. There was nothing of note. So the mass-produced new-gens were much like other civilian models he'd morphed before. No reserve capacitors for emergency boosts, no distributed sensorimotor processors for faster reflexes, no silent modes for their cooling systems...

Why would anyone put those features on a prototype, then? Who would make a Reploid for sneaking and killing and shapeshifting into other people after shocking the living daylights out of them – and then decide it wasn’t worth keeping?

He shuddered as if he could shake those thoughts out of his head by force. It wasn’t wrong to be good at those things. But he didn't want to imagine what X or Zero would say if they found out about tonight. Even when he was a vigilante in Red Alert, he'd never attacked a civilian purely for his own benefit.

But here was a chance – a long shot, but still a chance – to find out what he'd been before.

Alonzo would wake up soon anyway. Axl plugged him into the recharge bed and checked one last time to make sure he hadn't taken any lasting damage. Then he reverted to his own form and slipped away into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism welcome.


End file.
